Page 4A
East Oregonian
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OTHER VIEWS
Bridging the rural technology divide
H
igh-speed broadband access, both
wired and wireless, is critical for
participating in the 21st century
economy. This is as true in Pendleton as it is
in Portland. Eastern Oregonians need online
access to start businesses, shop online,
educate their kids, stay healthier through
telemedicine, and make their farms and
ranches more productive.
But not all Americans are fully benefiting
from the internet revolution, especially
in Eastern Oregon. We can’t allow rural
communities here and across the country
to fall behind due to lack of broadband
infrastructure. We call that disparity the
digital divide, and we are both committed to
closing it.
To better understand how we can
improve connectivity throughout Eastern
Oregon, we recently visited Hermiston,
Pendleton and Weston. We heard from
folks who experience the divide every
day. Local officials told us how the lack
of high-speed broadband access is hurting
the economy and even makes some
residents less optimistic about the future.
Rural health care providers told us how
important telemedicine was in rural towns,
and demonstrated how they use broadband
to connect patients with doctors online,
without patients needing to drive long
distances to an office or hospital.
Local law enforcement, first responders,
and 911 dispatchers told us that next-
generation networks, not the legacy
infrastructure of today’s
public safety system,
will help them carry out
vital emergency service
operations, helping them
save lives. Year after
year, Oregon experiences
catastrophic wildfires,
Ajit
reminding us all too well of
Pai
the importance of a strong
Comment
911 system.
All of these
constituencies need better internet access.
Getting there requires internet service
providers (ISPs) — small ones in particular,
since they tend to serve rural communities
— to have a stronger business case for
creating and improving that access. Several
small ISPs told us about the substantial
challenges they face in serving their
communities, from sparse populations to
regulatory burdens.
Closing the digital divide won’t be easy,
but the Energy and Commerce Committee
and the Federal Communications
Commission have made important progress.
First, Congress passed and the President
signed Ray Baum’s Act. This law
reauthorizes the FCC for the first time in
over 25 years, giving the agency additional
tools to support broadband expansion.
It has strong ties to Eastern Oregon, not
least being named for our dear friend,
policy advisor, and La Grande native Ray
Baum. We lost Ray to cancer earlier this
year, but his passion and
commitment to his home
community live on in this
legislation.
Ray Baum’s Act
includes bipartisan
provisions to make it
easier to deploy broadband
Greg
infrastructure on federal
Walden property. It improves
Comment
broadband mapping, which
helps pinpoint underserved
and unserved communities and ensures
resources go to the areas that need it most.
The bill also supports installing broadband
conduits during highway construction, a
commonsense step that expands broadband
while saving time and money.
The FCC has done its part to revise
and remove burdensome regulations, like
updating rules governing access to utility
poles and conduits, and modernizing rules
that delay service providers from replacing
1970s facilities with modern technologies
like fiber. The commission has also
allocated funding to support rural broadband
deployment. For instance, this month it
kicks off a nearly $2 billion program to
promote high-speed home internet access in
unserved parts of the country.
Additionally, our efforts have helped
secure $115 million in federal funds to
transition to Next Generation 911 systems,
which bring internet-based technology to
our Public Safety Answering Points. We
also boosted the FCC’s rural health program
budget by $171 million a year to enable
more rural patients to access telemedicine.
Bridging the digital divide bridges
political differences. We’re proud that much
of our work has been accomplished in a
bipartisan manner, and there’s even more we
can and should do.
The Energy and Commerce Committee
continues to consider additional bipartisan
legislation, including bills to coordinate and
track federal broadband funding across all
government agencies, as well as meet the
broadband needs for precision agriculture in
farming communities. Since the beginning
of the year, the committee has gathered
over two dozen legislative proposals from
members on both sides of the aisle regarding
broadband infrastructure. And you can learn
more about all that the FCC is doing here:
fcc.gov/digital-divide.
All Americans should be able to
participate in today’s digital economy,
regardless of where they live. The
committee and the FCC will continue
working to make this a reality for Eastern
Oregon and all of rural America. We’re
committed to closing the digital divide
and making a difference in the lives of
Oregonians.
■
Ajit Pai is chairman of the Federal Com-
munications Commission. Greg Walden rep-
resents Oregon’s Second District in the U.S.
House.
OTHER VIEWS
Democratic socialism is Dem doom
A
YOUR VIEWS
City of Umatilla violating
its own policy in choosing
interim city manager
Dear fellow citizens of the city of
Umatilla, it’s time to wake up. Our city
council is taking us for a ride through
its violation of established personnel
policy, and by not upholding its fiduciary
responsibilities to taxpayers.
Most of us are now aware that the
current city manager has submitted his
resignation. The council is taking action to
search for his replacement. In the interim,
the council has chosen a temporary
replacement for the city manager — but
not the person already in the position of
deputy city manager and who has been
trained, who has tenure, and was ready to
assume responsibility.
In March 2016, when the outgoing city
manager was first named to his position,
the council also took action to create a
deputy city manager position. The deputy
city manager and the finance director
positions were combined. Creating the
position helped solve some administrative
issues.
Based on the council’s actions and
approvals made in 2016, upon receipt of
resignation by the current city manager,
the responsibilities for that position should
have gone directly to the current deputy
city manager/finance director. The person
currently in the deputy city manager
position is both highly capable and
experienced with the operation of the city,
and would have afforded a totally seamless
transition.
Instead of following its own policy and
personnel procedure established in 2016,
the council chose a more recent addition
to city staff, with far less experience with
the city, to fill the interim city manager
vacancy.
In addition, now the city taxpayers
will have to pay an additional salary to
this city staffer. That cost equates to about
$5,000 annually. Had the council followed
the city’s own plan, the transition would
have been seamless and there would have
been no additional costs to taxpayers
because those responsibilities were already
included in the salary of the current deputy
city manager/finance director.
Not all of the council voted for
this interim personnel choice and they
should be acknowledged and thanked for
following the rules of the city. However,
the decision to not advance the deputy
city manager/finance director into the
temporary position means that the council
has reneged on promises they made to
you and me in 2016, and in so doing they
have proven reckless in their fiduciary
responsibilities to taxpayers.
Your voices should be heard.
David Trott
Former mayor, Umatilla
CONTACT YOUR U.S. SENATORS
Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5244
La Grande office: 541-962-7691
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
Jeff Merkley
313 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-3753
Pendleton office: 541-278-1129
political novice who calls
pretty well? You wouldn’t know
herself a “democratic
it by the way Europeans are
socialist” wins an
voting. France’s Socialists ran a
unexpected Democratic Party
left-wing candidate in last year’s
primary victory, and now political
presidential election, and crawled
taxonomists are racing to explain
away with barely 6 percent of the
just what the term means. Here’s
vote. Germany’s Social Democrats
my definition: political hemlock for
had their worst electoral result
Bret
the Democratic Party.
since 1933. Italy’s center-left was
Stephens trounced by a combination of
I write, of course, of Alexandria
Comment
Ocasio-Cortez. She’s the onetime
populists and right-wingers.
Bernie Sanders organizer whose
You can argue that the major
victory over long-term New York
goals of social democracy — universal
congressman Joe Crowley is being
health care and other social provisions —
compared to Tea Partyer Dave Brat’s 2014 were achieved long ago in Europe. But
primary defeat of the Republican House
they aren’t so fully realized, and are thus
majority leader, Eric Cantor — a sign of
potentially popular, in America, never
what’s to come for the Democratic Party
mind our own robust welfare state.
and the country at large.
But that misses the deeper point.
Well, maybe. It wasn’t long ago —
Today’s social democracy falls apart on
March — that Marine reservist and former the contradiction between advocating
federal prosecutor Conor Lamb was feted
nearly unlimited government largess and
as the Democratic future for winning a
nearly unlimited immigration. “Abolish
House seat in a Pennsylvania district that
ICE” is a proper rallying cry for hard-
Donald Trump had carried by 20 points.
core libertarians and Davos globalists, not
The shared secret of Lamb’s and Ocasio-
democratic socialists or social democrats.
Cortez’s success is that they ran energetic
A job guarantee is an intriguing idea —
campaigns, reflected the values of the
assuming the jobs are for some defined
“us” that doesn’t include every immigrant,
people they sought to represent, and faced
asylum-seeker or unauthorized worker.
lackluster or entitled opponents. Not
Trump gets this, as does the far right
every political contest is a battle of ideas.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of showing up. in Europe, which is why they attract such
powerful working-class support. Want to
Still, it should be said: “Democratic
preserve the welfare state? Build a wall
socialism” is awful as a slogan and
— or, in Europe’s case, reinstate border
catastrophic as a policy. And “social
controls. Want more immigrants and
democracy” — a term that better fits the
amnesty? Lower the minimum wage and
belief of more ordinary liberals who want,
abolish the closed shop.
say, Medicare for all — is a politically
But please choose. It’s one or the other.
dying force. Democrats who aren’t yet
It’s possible Democrats will surrender
sick of all their losing should feel free to
to the illusion that they can have both,
embrace them both.
puffing the sails of Ocasio-Cortez and
Start with democratic socialism.
her fellow travelers. But a Democratic
The Democratic Socialists of America,
Party seriously interested in defeating
of which Ocasio-Cortez is a member,
congressional Republicans in the fall
believe in economies defined by state-
and Trump in 2020 isn’t going to win by
owned enterprises and worker-owned
turning itself into a right-wing caricature
cooperatives. Versions of this have been
of the left. If Trump is the new Nixon, the
tried to varying degrees before: Israel in
right way to oppose him isn’t to summon
its first decades; post-independence India;
the ghost of George McGovern. Try
Sweden in the 1960s and ‘70s.
It always led to crisis: hyperinflation for some version of Bill Clinton (minus the
grossness) for a change: working-class
Israel in 1980s; an International Monetary
affect, middle-class politics, upper-class
Fund bailout for India in 1991; a banking
meltdown for Sweden in 1992. It’s usually aspirations.
I’ve written elsewhere that a chief
a recipe for corruption: State-owned
danger to democracy is a politics in which
enterprises such as Pemex in Mexico or
the center bends toward the fringe instead
Eskom in South Africa are local bywords
for graft and mismanagement. It frequently of the fringe bending toward the center. It’s
the way Trump became president. But the
leads to dictatorship. Hugo Chávez was
antidote to one extreme isn’t another, and
also a democratic socialist.
Democrats will only win once they reclaim
People used to know this stuff. That
the vital center of American politics.
someone like Ocasio-Cortez apparently
The center is Dayton and Denver, not
doesn’t is a fresh reminder that, in politics
Berkeley and Burlington. Democrats who
as in life, the most obvious lessons are the
want to win should know this.
ones you can least afford to stop teaching.
■
What about social democracy? Isn’t it
Bret Stephens, The New York Times
the norm in Europe, and isn’t it working
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